


If Wishes Were Horses

by orphan_account



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Banter, Bromance, Canon Gay Character, Community: burnthe_city, F/M, Gen, Het, Humor, OT3, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Prom, Romantic Friendship, Season/Series 03, Siblings, Teenagers, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is planet Earth and she is Jenny Humphrey, and, on planet Earth and as Jenny Humphrey, there are certain things she just shouldn't do. Among those things are staging bank heists, trying to dye Eric's hair, and, most importantly, asking Nate Archibald to prom.</p><p>Written for burnthe_city @ livejournal, prompt was: 11:11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Wishes Were Horses

**Author's Note:**

> Set after season three, written before season four aired. Originally posted 9/9/10.

"Sorry," is the first thing she says to him in months. It's appropriate, given the contents of his boxes strewn across the floor and her involvement in getting them there, but after only a second of hanging in the air, the word takes on a different meaning.

"Me, too," he replies, instantly. If it's to cover up the awkward silence that begins settling over them, it doesn't work. It must be, though, because he's got nothing to apologize for. She's the one who had knocked into him, stood there lamely as the entire stack - piled up to his nose - toppled over, and then continued to stare at him for eight quick beats of her heart before saying anything at all. On top of that, there's the whole sabotaging-his-relationship thing, that hasn't seemed to slip either his or Serena's minds like she had hoped it would.

"Why?"

She feels stupid immediately after she says it, and that's even before his eyebrows draw together and he cocks his head at her.

"What?"

"Oh, I just mean- why are _you_ sorry?"

She should have just not opened her mouth. No, no, she should have opened it and instead said something clever and charming that would make him forgive her and adore her all in one breath. They should have both knelt down to pick up his things at the same time, bumped their heads together, had a good laugh about it, and fallen in love forever and ever. She had had that same fantasy when she was fourteen, except it was supposed to have occurred in the halls of Constance, and not when helping him move into his apartment. Helping Dan, actually. Helping Dan move into Dan's apartment, where Dan would live. If Nate just happens to live there, too - well, so what?

"Oh." His head is still cocked to the side, his face still scrunched up, and she's sure he would look rather comical if the late afternoon sun wasn't directly outside the only decent window in the place, sending little dashes of golden light across his hair and slightly scruffy features, effectively making him look like Jesus or Brad Pitt, or someone like that. "I don't know."

She snorts before she can stop herself, which is probably rude and a bit ridiculous coming from her, standing there gawking stupidly and trying to keep her fingernails from digging into her palms with the effort of staying calm. So, she's shocked when his laugh fills up the silence, just as warm as she remembers it. She looks up at him through heavily clumped lashes, not trying for shy, but ending up that way somehow. His face is slowly lighting up, and she worries that there's something in her teeth or she'd spoken one of her crazy, racing thoughts out loud. It doesn't matter if he's laughing with her or at her, though, just that he's laughing, and it's making soft, curved lines on his face that are too nice to look at for her not to smile back.

Briefly, her mind trails back through the conversation, and she wonders if maybe he's laughing at himself. He's the only person she knows who tends to do that.

He drops to his knees to begin picking up the stuff that had spilled out - unused pens, unread books, some well-worn plaid, and an assortment of other college guy type stuff - and she promptly follows, remembering that it's her fault that it's there, in the first place. She knows she should say something soon, but she's saved for at least a few seconds when she picks up a shot glass with _Whiskey makes me frisky!_ printed across the front, and he breaks into laughter again.

"It was a gift," he says, quickly, "from a friend. Not even a friend, an acquaintance. An acquaintance that I don't even really like."

"You don't like them, but they give you gifts?" The words come out too breathily, but she blames it on her own laughter.

"Well, they like me."

"It's was my brother, wasn't it?"

Her breath threatens to drop out her throat when that makes him laugh harder, and she is sort of amused, too, but berates herself for caring if he finds her funny, or what he thinks at all, because he's _just_ a boy. One that she seriously doubts can do algebra, or read on a fifth grade level. He's certainly not as clever as her, and it's not like he's as gorgeous as everyone makes him out to be. His eyes are a rather nice shade, though, when she catches them, and - shit. She can knock him down in her head a million different ways, but it doesn't stop the lame, giddy feeling that bubbles in her stomach when he looks at her.

Her aforementioned brother makes an appearance then, just in time to stop the conversation from turning from playful to awkward in ten seconds flat, like she keeps fearing it will. Dan spots the several over-turned boxes, and begins something which only someone with a far-off and unclear idea of dancing, like if they'd only ever had it explained to them in a foreign language, could consider a victory dance, tossing his arms around wildly and hopping from foot to foot.

"Looks like Mr. Soccer Star was the first one to drop something. I'd say that's a goal for team Humphrey, wouldn't you, Jen?"

She's saved from crushing his spirits with the confession that she'd actually been the one to cause the accident, when Nate cuts off her barely formed words by telling Dan to stop cheerleading and come claim his prize of being allowed to help them clean up. He does, nearly killing himself with his own wit when he finds the Frisky! glass, and then promptly returning to the truck to direct the "furniture people," as he seems to be convinced is their actual job title.

Jenny stays inside with Nate to sort the boxes into their proper rooms, and she waits and waits and waits and waits for it to get awkward, but even as he makes a crack about her lack of lifting ability and she sets her whole pile down just to flip him off, it doesn't.

\---

She spends more time at Dan's than she does her Dad's or Mom's put together, and she might be bothered by this if she referred to it as anything but "Dan's" - like, for example, "Dan and Nate's" or simply "Nate's" - but she doesn't, so she's not. It's just a sort of safe haven, but she continually has to remind herself of this when she starts to worry that she only crashes on their sofa because it smells like the kind of aftershave that she knows her brother doesn't use.

But really, it's because she's Jenny when she's there, and not a just a bunch of pixels on a screen arranged in the shape of a _J_. The tinny beeps of Gossip Girl blasts are usually drowned out by the clacking of Hungry, Hungry Hippos or Nate yelling at a sports game on tv that Dan is attempting to care about and Jenny is attempting to not. The biggest drama happens when Dan tries to convince her that Nate only smokes pot for medical purposes, which mysteriously starts a number of rumors around Constance that the great Nate Archibald is dying of cancer. Her worst experience comes in the form of finding her brother shirtless and being straddled by a leggy brunette that she's never seen before on the couch that's become her second home. It's made almost completely better, though, when Nate grabs her arm and pulls her back out the door as he sends the pair a ridiculous wink. If their building was the type that had a doorman, they would have knocked into him as they struggled with laughter at the girl's facial expression all the way down to the sidewalk.  
Even though she makes Dan wash it, sitting on the sofa is never the same after that. She doesn't hold any real claim to it, but she feels like one of the apartment's unwritten rules has been broken; like how if you don't close the toothpaste, Dan will send stony looks your way for at least an hour, or how if Nate doesn't shower very early or last, it throws off the whole morning, because he takes the longest. The pale green, extremely uncomfortable sofa is hers, down to every last lumpy cushion. The idea that Dan could… violate it like that almost makes her question whether or not she really belongs there, or if they're just letting her stay out of pity or Dan's familial duty. If they are, she'll still prefer this sofa to any other place in the city, but that might not be enough to make her stay.

Her doubts are quelled within the next ten minutes, though, when Nate throws the door open - the only way to get in is to press your hip against it while jerking the knob at a weird angle as you push, which usually results in a grand, sweeping entrance no matter what hour of the night it is or who you're trying not to wake up - and sets down enough take-out for the three of them, including the Moo Shu pork that only she likes, even though she hadn't texted to say that she'd be there.

"Dan still out?"

"Unless I'm sitting on top of him and some new girl, and just haven't noticed yet." She makes a show of checking under the cushions and then shakes her head in time with his laughter.

"That would make for an interesting threesome," he says, wiggling his eyebrows at her ridiculously.

She almost replies that _they_ are an interesting threesome, sure that he would know what she means, but she thinks better of it when she realizes that it would involve her and Dan, which is just plain icky, her and Nate, which is a subject she's spent that past four and a half weeks successfully avoiding, and Dan and Nate, which is the only part of the joke that is actually funny and not awkward. If she even means it as a joke.

Instead she settles on, "gross," and wrinkles her nose, smiling anyway.

They make the sort of chit-chat that is awkward for people who don't know each other that well, but just plain comfortable for those who do, because it spares them from having to think too much, and they can just sit back and eat chinese food with someone they enjoy and discuss how much they've hated the weather this week and that they think they need new shoes, and will the other person please pick them out something stylish?

"You're a fashion-designer."

"An ex-fashion-designer."

"You never actually started, though, did you?"

"Right, so I'm an ex-almost-fashion-designer."

"You can't be 'ex' if you never started."

"Fine, then I'm a pre-fashion-designer."

"And where better to start than with me and my feet?"

"Um, anywhere?"

He finishes all of his food and then finishes Dan's as well, even sneaking some out of her plastic container when he thinks she's not looking, but doesn't leave to take a shower until he's somehow gotten her to promise that she'll take him shoe shopping tomorrow.

As she watches him go, she wonders if Nate's ever had sex on her sofa. He's got a room and a bed of his own, but that hadn't stopped Dan. If he has, she wonders if he'd even thought about the fact that she's spent most of the past month on it, or if he hadn't even really considered it, hadn't even really remembered it in the moment. She thinks she might be jealous about this, but then thinks she also might be kind of turned on. Then she feels something press into her back, and as she adjusts herself away from a particularly lumpy part of the couch, she reminds herself that no one in their right mind would actually want to have sex on this thing, and Dan would probably just take it wherever he could get it.

Briefly she considers what they would think if she fucked someone on it. Not that she couldn't find more comfortable places, but just hypothetically - would Dan hit the guy? Would Nate? Would Nate even care, or would he just feel awkward about someone who is practically his little sister getting off with some strange, shady guy? According to Dan, he hadn't been angry when he'd found out about her and Chuck, and he's about as strange and shady as they come.

She'd even become comfortable enough with Nate to approach the subject herself, one late night when Dan had been out and pot had been smoked.

"You're a bad influence," she'd told him of the joint he'd handed her.

"Please, you're a worse influence on me."

A long but comfortable pause, and then, before she could stop herself:

"I slept with Chuck."

He sort of chuckles at this, and it's the kind of laugh you do when you've just seen something hysterically funny that everyone else had missed, and you're still deciding whether on not you should try to explain it to them, even though they won't get it, or just keep it to yourself. "Who hasn't?"

And that had been that.

It had taken her weeks to decide whether or not she was disappointed or relieved, and in the end she had come to the conclusion that she didn't want to have an opinion, either way, and so she hadn't. And still doesn't, but is hasn't stopped her from being curious about it, about what he thinks of her. It's not like she cares. She knows better than to judge her worth on the opinions of a teenage boy - twenty in March, though, she reminds herself - but she allows herself to be curious.

Dan arrives home soon after, the door flying open as it always does, and complains loudly about the already-eaten state of his dinner when he looks at the table. Nate comes out of his room with a towel slung over his shoulders, still buttoning his pants, and they engage in a good-natured argument over Nate's inhumanly large appetite which quickly deteriorates into the two of them making completely unfounded comments about one another's weight, Jenny chiming in only occasionally to make "old lesbian couple" jokes, but mostly just watching amusedly.

In the end, they find themselves, as they do on most nights, piled onto her sofa and eating whatever's around the apartment. Tonight, that happens to consist of Jell-o packs and very old Cherry Coke, which nobody objects to, but everyone eyes suspiciously. They fall asleep to a crappy Lifetime movie and, for the fourth time this week, Jenny forgets to call her dad and tell him that she's sleeping over.

\---

It's a week and two days before one of them goes to bed earlier than 1 o'clock. It's just past eleven when Dan heads to his room, pleading his need to wake up early the next morning for a class when it earns him the status of "a total puss," from Nate. He bids them goodnight anyway, to which Jenny responds by turning the TV volume up until it can't go any higher, resulting in a light thump from Dan's room not two minutes later, which could only be his pillow hitting the wall.

"Maybe show him a little mercy?" Nate suggests, mostly halfheartedly.

"You're no fun," she says, but turns it down, anyway.

"More fun than Dan."

"Not a huge achievement."

They only laugh slightly at this, because jokes at the expense of her brother have become so common in the last month that she's not sure that there are any left to make, and if there are, she'd like to save them up for special occasions.

"Popcorn?" she offers, voice rising above the cheesy music of the old cartoon characters that chase each other across the screen.

He glances down at the bowl as his hand reaches out, then back up at her, almost pouting. "It's all kernels."

"Oh." Between watching the television and watching Nate, she hadn't checked her stash in a while. "Make some more."

He snorts. "You make some more."

"Think we could get Dan to?"

They look at each other for a brief second, and she's almost sure that the same plan that she's just thought of - to turn the volume up and refuse to lower it until Dan makes them enough popcorn to last for weeks - is forming in his mind as well, but then he starts laughing and shakes his head.

"That would be cruel."

"You're still no fun."

He glances at the clock. "Everyone knows I'm only fun from 12:00 AM to 11:00 PM. Currently, it's 11:10 PM, so you'll have to wait 50 minutes if you want any food."

"Dick," she says, without any real force behind it, and he just laughs again and turns back to the TV. Her eyes stay on the clock, though, counting down the seconds until it changes, because this is something that she did all through-out her childhood, and she hasn't thought about it in years. She thinks there's been a theme in her life lately of remembering things that she'd forgotten, like her brother, and eating food, and having a home.

"11:11," she declares, when the fourth number finally changes, "make a wish."

Nate looks from her to the clock. "What?"

"Don't tell me you've never heard of that. I tried to explain it to Hazel and Iz once, in freshman year, and that got me moved three steps down at lunch for a week."

He seems amused at her past misfortune as he shakes his head. "No, I know what it is, Serena used to make us do it all the time" - and for a short, painful second, she feels like the mention of Serena will make things awkward, but he skates right over it and continues - "in sixth grade."

"Shut-up," she says, rolling her eyes as he mocks, "it's 11:11and I think I damn well deserve a wish." And as almost an after-thought, "and so do you."

He sighs, over-dramatically, still smiling. "Fine, go ahead."

"You first."

"Why me?"

"Because mine is better, and we save the best for last. Now hurry up, or we'll miss it."

"Okay." He pauses, his eyes rolling skyward and she can practically see the effort it's taking him to think of something he wants. She supposes that with that much money, there's no need for wishes. "I wish… for a pony."

She makes an almost believably exasperated sound. "You're not supposed to say it out loud. Now it won't come true."

He shrugs. "Oh, well, I don't really have anywhere to keep one, anyway." But she sees Serena as the type of person who would take 11:11 very seriously, and not skip over any of the rules, so it's probable that he'd know that he was doing it wrong, and had continued anyway. Probably just to annoy her. "Now it's your turn."

She glances at the clock to makes sure she's still got time, then quickly closes her eyes and makes her wish. When she opens them up, Nate's face is the first thing she sees. His goofy grin looks considerably less goofy and more attractive than it has any right to, and the way his eyebrows raise expectantly only adds to the effect.

"Well?"

She sees the clock change to 11:12 behind him. "Well, what? I can't tell you what it is."

He narrows his eye ridiculously and crosses his arms, obviously trying to hold back his smile. "Fine."

"Fine."

Not even a second passes and Nate uncrosses his arms, an idea lighting up his face. "Did you wish for more popcorn?"

"Maybe." She thinks that he really is smarter than he looks. Slowly, he stands up, taking the bowl out of her lap and she smirks at his back as he heads toward the kitchen. "Thank you, Nate."

He doesn't turn around to face her, but when he speaks, she can hear the smile in his voice. "Don't thank me," he says, "not even the strongest man in the world can resist the magic of 11:11, okay? Thank the Wish Master." He pops the microwave open, setting a new pack inside.

She hears the beeps of the buttons and then the deep hum filled with a few pops here and there, and fights back the urge to walk over and hug him. "Thank you, Wish Master."

\---

She asks him to prom.

He's just sitting there at the opposite end of her sofa, pretending to study his notes and periodically nudging her with his feet, and for the two seconds it takes for her to get the words out, it seems like the best idea she's ever had. Only when his head jerks up and he looks her full-on in the eyes for the first time in hours, does she remember that this is planet Earth and that she is Jenny Humphrey, and that, on planet Earth and as Jenny Humphrey, there are certain things she just shouldn't do. Among those things are staging bank heists, trying to dye Eric's hair, and, most importantly, asking Nate Archibald to prom.

No one should have to ask Nate Archibald to prom, really. He stares at her, and Jenny thinks she wouldn't wish this torture on her worst enemy, and not just because the person she considers such - although, she hardly counts, now that Jenny rarely ever sees Blair, and when she does, it's not much more than a few unenthusiastic barbs traded about one another's fashion choices before they go their separate ways - had actually gone to prom with Nate two years prior.

He just continues to stare, and she feels an unnaturally fierce desire for a shovel so that she can dig herself a hole in the sofa and crawl inside it and not come out until Nate catches sight of something shiny and then can't remember what his own name is, much less the extremely embarrassing question she'd just posed.

Then he laughs.

But no matter how nice he looks doing so, she can't quite bring herself to join in. He seems to sense her discomfort from the way she looks away and digs her fingers into her palms.

So, she'd asked a guy to prom and he'd laughed at her. Worse things had happened, right? At this point, some girls might feel like crying. Jenny kinda wants to hit him, but she thinks that might be a little too aggressive, and she better just call him names. Or she could be mature about this.

She glares at him and his laughter doubles.

Okay, fuck maturity.

She thinks something pathetic might have just flashed through her eyes, because he sobers pretty quickly then, and says, a hint of laughter still in his voice,"what?"

"Nothing," she says, avoiding his eyes." I… coughed." And the award for smoothest smooth-talking goes to…

He shakes his head, smile appearing before he can stop it. "No, you didn't. You asked me to prom. You didn't even ask, you just said, 'go to prom with me.' A little commanding, don't you think?" He looks on the edge of hysterical giggles, but there's no malice to it, either. Then she reminds herself that Nate is about as capable of being malicious as he is of spelling it, and he wouldn't purposefully try to hurt her, even in saying no.

She points her chin up, determined to show him that she neither wants nor needs his pity. "You laughed in my face. A little rude, don't you think?"

His smile falls. "Sorry. I… didn't mean it like that. It was just funny." She gives him a look and he puts his hands up in a motion of surrender. "You know what I mean. You were very abrupt and loud and it came out as more of an order than a question, really."

"Oh." She hadn't really been planning on saying it, so once she had, she had been too horrified to dwell on the moment. She could have squawked the words in his face like a total weirdo and she wouldn't have even noticed. "You still laughed at me, which was really jerk-ish."

"Sorry," he says.

"Okay." She looks down, and she doesn't really know what to do with her hands now that they've released their death grip, so she just drops them to her sides. She looks up to see him still staring at her.

"You want to try again?"

Is he asking her to ask him out again? "Not really."

"Please."

No, apparently he's _begging_ her to ask him out again. If he was anyone else, she'd tell him to fuck off. But this is Nate, and this is her sofa, and she feels safe in this place with this person, even if she shouldn't, since this is a rather shady part of town and this is the boy who'd just laughed at her invitation to prom. It's not like she doesn't have other offers. Several, actually, some of them from hot, well-respected boys. She may have little to no social life, but she's still as much of a queen as Constance currently has, and that, plus the fact the she's pretty much a babe, makes her prime dating material.

Even so, she rolls her eyes, clears her throat, and says, with an over-the-top sweep of her arms, "Will you go to prom with me, Nate?"

"No," he says, "no, I cant" - but he must realize that this sounds like an excuse, so he amends - "I won't. I won't go to prom with you." There is something in his face that makes her want to ask again, just to be sure, but she is not this girl and she will not act like this girl, not even for a second. So, she returns with the only thing that seems like an appropriate response.

"Ass."

He raises his eyebrows and it looks as if he's about to nod his agreement when she meets his eyes, and uses hers to beg with everything she's got for him not to apologize agin. And the weeks of sending each other significant looks in order to silently come up with plans to convince Dan not to try to cook anything must have paid off, because he seems to understand.

"Bitch," he replies, but it's playful.

"Slut."

"Chuck-Bass-fucker."

She snorts. "Who isn't?"

"Touché."

"I didn't think you knew what that word meant."

"I am older than you, you know, and therefore way more knowledgeable."

"Why do you think I asked you to prom? The older your date, the cooler you are. Unless, he's, like, forty or something."

"Are you being serious?"

"No. I don't know. Aren't you studying?"

He looks down at his books. "No."

She sighs, and thinks maybe the return to some sort of normalcy in the conversation means that she can go the rest of her life pretending that this whole night was a frightening though rather anti-climactic dream, caused by not enough daily fiber and too many lumps under her back.

"Okay," she says.

"Okay."

\---

When she thinks about it, if she can't go to prom with Nate Archibald, Nate Archibald Jr. is a pretty good second choice.

Graham Collins is good-looking and athletic and slightly more intelligent than the original model, so really, this is better. He tells decent jokes, dances well, and people swarm around him like he's covered in honey or something, and from the way his hair shines, it's a legitimate possibility. And when they're crowned Prom King and Queen, he politely points out that he doesn't actually go to this school, but no one seems to mind that much, so he accepts the crown anyway. And, yes, he's a little offended when she cuts their King and Queen waltz short to go dance with Eric, but not for the reasons that he should be.

"How's your date?" Eric's glaring at Graham over her shoulder, and she doesn't have to turn around and look to know that.

"Gay," she says, to which he snorts, "yours?"

"Straight, this week."

He looks down at his shoes, which are probably worth much more than the blood, sweat, and tears she put into making her own dress - Dan and Nate had to yell everything for days over the noise of the loud music she uses to drown out the sewing-machine, but as often as they told her to find a new hobby, they never once suggested she go sew at someone else's place on someone else's sofa.

"His girlfriend call again?"

"Showed up, this time. With a love poem." He waits for her head to collapse against his shoulder in a fit of giggles, before continuing. "I'm pretty sure she printed it off of the internet. I mean, how can I compete with that?" He tries to smile at the joke like it's nothing, but she sees the defeated glaze on his eyes and wraps her arm tighter around him.

"You could write a poem, too?" she suggests, and he raises his eyebrows and clears his throat.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, Elliot's a jerk, and Graham is, too."

"Hey, that's my date you're getting poetic about." But she doesn't disagree.

"He seems a little more interested in the bus-boy." Eric nods his head in some odd direction, and Jenny turns to see a fairly drunk Graham getting cozy with some guy in the corner of the ballroom. She's about to let it continue, not concerned enough about her reputation to really care, but then she thinks that maybe he might be. She kisses her step-brother on the cheek and heads over to Graham, pulling him away from the boy and down a dark hall. He struggles at first, but apparently realizes he's too drunk to find his way back to the party on his own, because he slumps against her once they take a turn.

"What are you doing, Humphrey?"

She sighs, and sets him up against the wall, leaning beside him.

"Look, I could honestly care less about who knows your dirty, little secret, but you've been a gentleman tonight, so I thought I'd return the favor."

He squints at her and repeats, "favor?"

"Yeah," she looks down, feeling like maybe she should have left him to clean up his own mess.

"Are you talking about sex?"

She lightly smacks the side of his head before she can stop herself, then rolls her eyes. "No."

"Good."

"Good?" And she knows why, but she feels like giving him a hard time, anyway.

He tries to stand up straight then, like he thinks he's really offended her and wants to make it right, and it makes it even more difficult for her to figure out whether he's a decent person or not. "Sorry. I don't mean… You just…"

"Have boobs?"

She smirks slightly and she's sure he's about to declare his utter straightness at a volume that will reach the ballroom for sure, but the look in her eyes seems to tell him that she won't believe it, anyway, so he just slumps down the wall until he's sitting on the floor, and snorts. "Barely."

She makes an insulted sound and looks down at her chest.

"Jackass," she says, but slides down to sit next to him, anyway. Her hands fly up to her head to steady her tiara, and she removes it briefly to stare at the rather expensive looking piece of head-wear. Nothing less than lavish for Constance, she supposes.

"Sorry, um…" he looks at her and his mouth makes a shape that's probably supposed to be a smirk, but is too much like an actual smile to pass for one. "You're really pretty. I'm sure if you were with anyone else they'd have you up against this wall already."

She gives him a disgusted look, but doesn't have the energy to be all that insulted. Her reputation as the sluttiest slut that ever slutted around seems to be known by everyone, including the dyslexic cashier at the bakery around the corner from Dan and Nate's who always screws up their orders, so she's used to it by now. "They would not."

He snorts and looks at her. "I don't know, I've heard you're pretty easy."

"I've heard the same thing about you from Eric." There's a bite in her tone, but nothing so harsh as to make Graham cry like she could on one of her better days.

He looks down then, and there might be actual guilt in his eyes, but she can't see them. "Sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

"Then stop getting mad at me."

"I would if you'd stop being a dick."

He looks at her again and she thinks he's going to say sorry again, and she prepares herself to full-out slap him, but then he just shakes his head and laughs. "I guess this means we won't be having a second date."

She nods. "Considering I don't like you very much at all, I'd say that's a good guess."

"I don't like you, either, you know."

But he still asks her for an early ride home, and she still gives it to him, and keeps him steady all the way to his door before tossing him against the wall and searching his pockets for a room key, and tells him to shut-up when he asks her to make Eric call him back. And when she finally gets the door open and stumbles into his hotel room, she finds an uncomfortable looking sofa to lie him on, and tosses the thinest, crappiest blanket on top of him.

"Sorry," he says one last time.

She brushes his hair out of his eyes and tells him he's a fucker, before heading for the door.

\---

Graham had gotten drunk so early that by the time she gets home, it's barely eleven. No, not _home_ , Dan and Nate's, she means. Actually, just Dan's. Except that Dan's not there. Instead, Nate's stretched out along her sofa like a big, plaid jungle cat, and of all the surprising things that he could possibly be doing - not smoking pot, jacking off, actually studying - the last thing she'd expected to see is the pink, plastic tiara that he's twirling in his hands. He's following the movement with his eyes, but they snap to her when the door hits the wall with a familiar crash.

She wonders if she looks ridiculous, all dressed up and standing in the doorway of the shittiest apartment that Dan and Nate could possibly find. She remembers asking, on the day they moved in, why they didn't just get a nicer place, seeing as Dan had a respectable amount of money and Nate was pretty much rolling in it.

"It's part of the college experience," Dan had told her, before heading back outside for more boxes.

Nate had nodded along until Dan's back had disappeared, then leaned down to whisper in her ear, as if there were being watched by the government or something. "He gets all twitchy when I try to buy him nice things."

Jenny's breath had caught in her throat at the proximity, and all she had been able to do was smile and say, a bit shakily, "He gets twitchy when someone's socks don't match."'

It had been the second in a long and amusing stream of Dan-jokes that afternoon, but it had also seemed like Nate had been telling the truth. Dan always gets all uppity when anyone tries to give him something or help him out. She remembers being lectured at for half an hour when she was four, for trying to help him practice tee-ball. Jenny, on the other hand, has no problem accepting the things that people are willing to offer, no matter how nice or expensive. _Nice_ and _expensive_ , though, are not words she would use to describe the object Nate begins holding out for her.

He pauses. "You have a crown," he says, looking suddenly very downtrodden.

"Yeah, so do you, I see." She nods at the plastic tiara.

"Oh, yeah." She's not sure, but she thinks she sees Nate blush slightly, embarrassed for maybe the first time in his life. "It's for you."

She stares at him, not comprehending. "You got me a tiara?"

"Is that what the girl kind is called?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, yes. I got you a tiara."

She bites her lip, and then thinks it probably makes her look like she's trying to be a sexy or something, so she lets it go. "I already have a tiara."

"I know, I just said that."

She's starting to think maybe somebody regrets not saying yes to her invitation, but plays dumb anyway. "Technically, you said 'crown.'"

"Shut-up." He's looking down at the tiara that he's still spinning in his hands. When he finally glances up, she knows he finds her smirking and narrows his eyes at her. She just pulls off the tiara she's already wearing, the one that does fall under the categories of nice and expensive, and drops down next to him on the sofa. She reaches out a hand and he, very slowly, places the pink tiara into it. She slips it up onto her head, and if she had felt ridiculous a minute ago, she doesn't know what she feels now.

"How do I look?"

Nate looks as if he's going to say one thing, but then changes it to another. "Like a dork."

She thinks he's probably right, but she shoves him lightly anyway, then asks, "did you think I wouldn't win?"

"No, I knew you"- he stops himself when she gives him a look that's designed to tell him to keep his bullshit to himself. "Well, kinda. It's not like you ever go to parties anymore, or anything, is it? I figured someone else was queen now. And I thought maybe you'd want or, I don't know, deserve a crown. Or tiara, or whatever."

Jenny smiles and leans across him to place the much fancier tiara on his head. "You deserve one, too."

She leans back to admire her handiwork and sees the look he's giving her that's somewhere between horror and pride, but he seems to swallow both back, and then whispers, voice much lower than usual, "thanks."

She clears her throat. "No problem." Then shrugs lamely and looks away. "And honestly, I wasn't sure I would win, either, but going with Graham Collins probably made up for whatever points I lost for not ordering people around all the time."

Nate blinks at her. "Blair says Graham Collins is gay," he says, voice back to normal level.

She snorts, looking back up at him and meeting him full on in the eye. "For once, Blair actually has it right."

And, as always, the subject of Blair Waldorf doesn't bring hugs and agreement to the conversation, but, rather, causes it to deteriorate pretty quickly to two loud, frustrated voices, trying to be heard over one another. "You can't still blame Blair for what happened with"-

"I don't blame Blair. I don't blame anyone for"-

"You've got to at least blame"-

"Not Chuck, either"-

"Well, don't blame yourself."

"I don't."

"You've got to blame some"-

"No, actually, I don't have"-

"Come on, Jenny. You were gone for practically six months."

"It's not like it was the worst experience of my life."

"I'm not saying"-

"What, did you miss me, or something?"

She doesn't mean it as such low blow, but the look on his face after she says it makes her wish she could take it back or scream it a thousand times more. _Did you miss me, or something? Did you miss me, or something? Did you miss me, or something? Did you miss me, Nate?_ Mostly, though, she just wants him to answer her.

It takes a while, but he finally does. "Not at the time, not really." And her throat feels a little constricted and her skin a little too flushed, but she reminds herself that he's just being honest and it keeps her fingers from ripping the tiara off of her head. "But now that you're here, if you left again"-

"I'm not going to." She feels stupid for assuring him of this. At the moment, she really does want to leave, to just get out of this apartment, off of this sofa, out of this stupid dress.

"How do you know?"

He looks so much younger than he usually does and it would be scary if it wasn't so cute.

"Why would I leave agai"-

"Because everyone leaves." His voice is quiet, but he's quickly on his feet, the tiara falling off with the force of the movement. She tries to catch it before it hits the floor.

She misses.

"Do you mean that everyone leaves you?" she asks, voice even quieter than his.

"No," he says quickly, not looking at her, but she can hear the _yesyesyesyesyes_ in it, and she thinks maybe it's true. Serena, Chuck, Dan, his dad, herself. It doesn't really matter that they'd all come back, eventually. The fact is that they'd gone in the first place. And maybe that's why he's always so loyal to Blair. She'd dumped him, she'd sort of broken his heart, but she'd never _left_. But even as sympathy for him pours into her veins, she feels very suddenly and irrationally angry.

"Good," she says, "because even you're not that stupid." She knows the bite in her voice is too harsh, and the slam of her feet when she stands up is too loud, but she can't bring herself to stop.

He looks up then, finally meeting her eyes, and she sees confusion staring back at her. "What?"

"You think you're the only one who's ever been left behind before, Nate?" She practically yells it, and he takes a step back, but she doesn't know if that's from the volume of her voice of the way she's advancing on him. "You think you're the only person in the entire world who knows what it feels like to be left all alone?"

"No," he says, voice quiet and sharp, "no, I don't think that." Then there's anger, she can see it the moment it enters his eyes, hot and scary and bright like she knows hers are. "But who are you to talk about it like you're some kind of expert, Jenny? You- you have a father and a brother"-

"You don't need to physically go anywhere to leave someone, Na"-

"You're the one who left!"

" _I'm the one who got left!_ "

She's surprised no one's complaining about the noise, but she from the echoes of a heavy Ukrainian accent shouting something from the street below, she gathers that the neighbors are probably used to it. So, they just stand there, breathing deeply and glaring at each other. Nate's eyes are watery and she wishes he'd just cry first so she wouldn't feel like such a loser for breaking down with him.

He shakes his head slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"You left me, you all left me." She keeps her voice quiet, but it wants to burst out of her throat and spew across the room like lava. To burn everything down. Even that fucking sofa. "You all just went off to college and I was still there, I'm _still_ there. Fighting the battle that you guys have already won. With Gossip Girl up my ass 24/7 and everyone treating me like the horrible slut that ruined the true love of Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf. It doesn't matter that I'm queen or that I have a stupid fucking crown"- she reaches up and pulls the piece of plastic off of her head, throwing it at his feet -"I'm still alone. I'm still… Except, when I'm here with you and Dan. I thought… I don't know what I thought." She looks down at her hands. "I should go."

Her vision is blurry and her head hurts with the effort it takes to keep the tears from falling. She's about to turn around for the door, when he laughs.

It's watery and it fills her ears like a foghorn, loud and unwelcome, and she really wants to hit him. And maybe she's about to, but a hand closes around her shoulder and another places something light on top of her head. She glances at the floor to see that the pink crown has been picked up, before she feels warm breath against the side of her face.

"Idiot," he whispers, "it's called a tiara."

She tries to lightly to shove at him, but he doesn't move. "Shut-up," she says, before pretty much burying her face against his shoulder. She doesn't cry, no longer even feels the need to, just stands there and breaths in and out and feels his arm come around her, not hugging her, but just sort of slumping her closer against him.

Then she feels his breath again, in her hair this time. "It's 11:10," he says, "almost wish time."

She moves her head up to glance at the clock behind him and sees that he's right, pulling away slightly. She has a wish right then, but not enough patience to wait for the clock to change, so she just angles her head up slightly and presses her lips, rather forcefully, against his.

This is planet Earth and she is Jenny humphrey, and, on planet Earth and as Jenny Humphrey, there are certain things she just shouldn't do. Kissing Nate Archibald is not one of them.

He waits a good four seconds before responding, enough time for her to have pulled away and thrown herself out the window if this was any other person and they were standing next to anyone else's sofa. Once he does, though, that's the end of those doubts. It's maybe the sloppiest kiss she's ever had, too forceful and not enough consideration given to pleasure or enjoyment or, like, standing up straight. She trips over his feet at least twice, and she's pretty sure he accidentally slams his knee against the corner of the coffee table, but neither of them really care.

She remembers both of them being able to kiss much better two years ago, but she almost likes it more this way.

When she pulls away, she doesn't look at him immediately, just slumps down onto the sofa and takes in great lungfuls of air. She glances up at him after a few seconds, to find him sitting down next to her, just as out of breath. Her hand flies to her hair before she can stop it, and she's irrationally pleased to find the plastic, pink tiara still balanced there. Slowly, she reaches down and picks the other one up.

Nate glances at the clock and her eyes follow his, seeing a small, orange 11:12 staring back at her.

"We missed it," he says, probably because he can't think of anything else to say.

Jenny just smirks slightly and places the fancy tiara, rather crookedly, on top of his head. He makes a move to remove it, but she grabs his hand before he can, and sits back to admire her handiwork.

"I don't really mind."

\---

This one's Italian and she knows the menu to be good, but Dan shakes his head.

"Too crowded."

The next is Chinese and contains one lonely, balding man and his newspaper. This time, she objects.

"Too empty."

Dan shoots her a look.

"What? That's the kind of place where the waiters are so excited to have someone to serve, they won't ever leave you alone." Jenny knows this from too much experience.

He rolls his eyes but continues walking alongside her, glancing wistfully back at the sign that announces Kung Pao chicken as the special. She knows he must be as starving as she is, having kept up with her on the long trek past more restaurants and cafes than should be allowed in one city, let alone just one section.

The plan had been lunch. The actuality is 3:30 PM, more rejected dining-spots than she can count, and a growing pain in her stomach. Despite the hunger, Jenny knows that she's passed up a few perfectly good places in favor of continuing the walk with her brother. Sure, they spend much more time together now than she'd gotten used to before she'd left, but she still sort of feels like there are months, maybe years, of only mild interest in one another's lives that they have to make up for.

"This is New York, Jen," he tells her, like it's premium knowledge he's about to drop and she would do well to take notes or something, "nobody talks to anybody they don't know if they can help it."

She smirks. "Maybe nobody talks to you…"

Dan tries to hide his smile as he presses a finger to his lips in a hopeless effort to make her stop her inevitable mockery.

"I mean, you are Dan Humphrey, after all."

"Hey, you're Dan Humphrey's little sister," he points out, as if it will stop her.

"But somehow I made it over that debilitating setback. I guess it's because I'm so pretty, and smart…"

"And never wear any pants." A raise of his eyebrows and a glance at her legs - it's the closest thing to an opinion that he's offered about her fashion choices in weeks, which is unusual, but she lets him get away with it due to the tiny sliver of guilt she feels for always teasing him.

"Hey, I've got to make friends somehow." She gives him something that they call The Nate Wink before he can turn the conversation serious, like his facial expression is indicating he'd like to. They've had the _you have so much more to offer than just your looks, Jenny_ talk so many times before, that by this point, she usually just meets it with a lackluster suggestion that he bite her.

Either the wink throws him off, or he's simply decided to spare her this time, because he makes what he'd probably call an innocent face and says, "what friends?"

She shoves her shoulder into him, glancing away as they pass a Slovakian place. "Too intimidating," she says, before turning back to Dan, "and I have friends."

He raises his eyebrows expectantly.

"You, and Eric"-

"Family," he cuts in.

-"Nate"-

"Practically family."

Jenny tries to keep from choking on her own tongue. "Nate is not family."

"I said 'practically'." Dan looks confused, but she ignores him in favor of running a hand through her hair and glancing around for more restaurants to reject. Unfortunately, they're standing next to a shoe store, and the next shop in view is some sort of dorky animal figurine place. Eventually, she just looks back at him.

"He can be your family all you want, but he's not mine."

"What is this?" Dan asks, obviously lost, "I thought you guys were getting along. I know you had a fight or something last night, but everything seemed to have worked itself out by this morning."

Previously, she had just been glaring in her brother's general direction, but as he speaks, her eyes snap to his. "You heard that?"

"The yelling? I'm pretty sure the deaf Ukrainian guy who collects pennies across the street heard you."

"Bohdan?" She asks, trying to sort it out in her head. The question of how much Dan had heard beats against the walls of her skull, but, somehow, it just won't leave her mouth. "He collects nickels. The one who collects pennies is Kostya, and he's usually a couple blocks down."

"Jenny," is all he says, but it's enough to pull the invisible string connected from her tongue to the little box in her brain marked Secrets.

"I kissed him."

"What?" Dan stops abruptly, but she's ready for it and stops with him. He's just standing there, breathing and looking at her, but it's enough to make her never want to speak again. Not knowing what else to do, she avoids his eyes, instead focusing on the figurine shop that they're now stopped in front of. Hundreds of pairs of beady little ceramic animal eyes stare back at her. "You kissed…"

"Kostya," she says quickly, knowing it's the lamest possible remedy for the situation, but she can't think what else to do, "I kissed Kostya."

"You did not kiss Kostya," he says firmly, staring at her, as she stares at a little, glass pig.

"Bohdan?" she tries, rather pathetically.

Jenny's never been a fan of horror movies, preferring films with a lot of sex and good clothes and talking, but she's seen enough of them to know the look that the psychos always get on their faces before their first axe-murder. All she can say, though, is that neither Freddy nor Jason have anything on Dan Humphrey. The quiet, almost imperceptible rage would only be clear to someone who knows him as well as his sister, unfortunately for Jenny.

"Nate," he says quietly, "you kissed Nate."

"Yeah." They're stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, making it so passers-by have to steer around them, but Jenny barely notices. "And don't you yell or lecture, because you have no right to be mad, Dan. This is my business and I'm sharing it with you as a courtesy."

"I- wh- _no right to be mad?_ "

She nods. He stares.

"Jenny, do you have any idea what you've done?"

She rolls her eyes. "Let me guess… launched an armada? Sent nuclear missiles straight for Tokyo? Began the end of the world? What, Dan, what is so bad about Nate and me kissing?"

"You, _ugh_ , you don't get it, do you?" She just stares at him, and he pulls his bag against his chest, almost protectively, and shoots her a look like she's Nate and he's trying to teach her calculus. "We- you, Nate, and I - we have a thing." Her eyes widen a little. "God, not that kind of thing. A thing, okay? A, um, a couch. How about that? You know that couch in the apartment, the one we all sit and watch crappy movies on? That couch is something that barely anybody we know has, barely anybody in this city. That couch is like, like it's a symbol for home, in this scenario, right? We could all sit there and just hang out. It was easy and platonic and simple and now" - he's growing increasingly flustered with every word - "now you guys, both you and Nate, have just pissed all over the couch."

She's silent for several seconds longer than she had planned to be, but, she excuses herself, because she's a little shocked. She'd been anticipating some more of the _'I'm your big brother, blah blah Nate blah blah soccer'_ bullshit from her sophomore year. The argument he's using now… actually makes a bit of sense. Eventually, though, she comes around from the shock enough to spot the obvious flaws.

"And what about you fucking some random girl on the sacred couch? Is that or is that not pissing on it?" she nearly spits.

He looks confused for a second before something apparently clicks. "That's different. Katie, she's not me or you or Nate and- and, it's my couch! I can do whatever I want on it."

Further proof that it was very smart of Dan Humphrey never to sign up for the debate team.

"I thought it was _our_ couch? I'm the one who sleeps on it, so technically, it should be mine."

He scoffs. "I'm the one who paid for it."

The conversation is quickly going from angry and intense to childish and a little bit funny. Jenny puts her hand on her hip and smirks. "Fine, I'll pay you the four dollars it's worth and we'll call it even."

Dan meets this with a sort of defeated look. For the first time since she brought up the kiss, he glances away from her, eyes darting down to his hands briefly, before searching the area, presumably for something to lock onto. "Look, Jenny," he says, eyes finally settling back on her, having found nowhere else to go, "I know you don't want to screw anything up, and I know Nate doesn't, either, but the last few months have just been really, really good. Too good, given our history. I'm just worried - no, I'm scared - that something's going to screw it up."

It's her turn to look down, because, by some miracle, he has a point. "It was just a kiss. I- I kiss people all the time."

He narrows his eyes. "No, you don't."

She looks up, smirking. "How do you know? You're my brother. Do you really think I would tell you about everyone I kiss?" What her eyes hit is not her brother, though. She's looking past himm, into the glass window of the figurine shop, seeing maybe the most perfect thing that she could have possibly seen.

"You're lying, please say you're lying." His voice is background noise to her, though, as she edges closer to the window.

She briefly glances back at him, before hooking her arm around his and pulling him toward the entrance to the store. "You puzzle that one out, while I make a very important purchase."

"What?" Dan looks at the shop display. "What do you want with a ceramic unicorn?"

Jenny can't help the smile that breaks across her face as she pulls the door open. "Not a unicorn, exactly," she says.

\---

Nate shifts for the fourth time in thirty seconds, and she thinks he'll finally reach behind the cushions, but instead, he just turns to her and cocks his head to the side.

"Does the sofa feel lumpier to you today?" he asks, and if she hadn't known exactly what he was talking about, she probably would have burst into laughter at this.

"Don't know," she says, trying to keep her voice neutral, "why don't you check?"

"Check the lumps?"

"If you want to put it like that, then yes."

He pauses, seeming to consider it, the he looks at her and his eyes light up.

"Or you could do it for me?" He sounds hopeful.

Jenny snorts. "We're close Nate, but we're not that close. You're going to have to check your own lumps until we at least get to second base." She can feel him freeze next to her, but she doesn't take her eyes off the TV. It's the first time either of them had alluded to the kiss since it had happened the night before, and she knows things are about to get really awkward.

When he bursts out laughing, she's reminded of who he is and how he has no concept of anything but comfort and pot. "I was wondering when you were going to bring that up."

She eyes him from the side. "You could have brought it up yourself."

"I' was going to try, but all you've been able to talk about is this sofa and us sitting on this sofa and this lump and…" Something seems to work itself out in Nate's mind, and he looks suspiciously at the cushion behind him. "Okay, what is it?"

"I have no idea what you could possibly mean." She bites back a smile and keeps her eyes trained away from him.

"There's something under these cushions, isn't there?"

"I don't know, why don't you check? Like I've been trying to get you to do for the last twenty minutes."

He makes to turn, then pauses. "Is it something gross? Or potentially scaring?"

She smirks. "It depends on your definition of 'gross'."

"… Mine is the one where it grosses you out."

Jenny rolls her eyes. "Relax, it's just Dan's gay porn collection."

Nate immediately moves back a few inches before realizing she's joking, but it's rather telling how quick he is to believe her.

He laughs again. "What is is, really?" he asks.

"Really? I think maybe you should look for yourself."

Nate lets out a great, over-dramatic sigh, but begins pulling away the cushion, anyway. When he reaches the cause of his discomfort, he picks it up, eyes it for a few seconds, then looks at her blankly.

"It's a horse."

Does she really have to explain everything to him? "A pony," she corrects.

A few seconds pass, and then his lips curl. His eyes turn to the brown, spotted pony figurine and his smile just grows.

She smiles back. "My wishes kept coming true, and, I figured, yours should, too."

He looks at her like he's going to hug her, kiss her, grab her and do that fancy dip that they do in romantic movies. Instead, he just sits there, smiling and looking at her in a way where she can tell that he's not actually looking, but thinking about something that takes up all the brain power that would normally be used on eyesight. She thinks it would probably kill the mood, if there even is one, if she were to snap her fingers in front of his face, but she's tempted to, anyway.

When he finally does look at her, though, he's looking hard enough to make up for the past thirty seconds. "Don't leave," he says, so soft that he's practically whispering it to her, "I really don't know what- just don't leave again, okay?" He clears his throat then, before she can respond, so she just nods mutely. She thinks she knows what he means and why he's saying it the way he is, and she thinks she knows what she wants to say back - _I won't_ \- but she doesn't.

She smirks instead. "Is that your way of saying thank you?"

He smirks back, or gives as much of a smirk as he can manage, given his obvious giddiness. "Why would I thank _you_?" he asks, feigning confusion. He glances at the clock. 8:46 PM, it says, but he doesn't seem to care. "Thank you, Wish Master."


End file.
